PRESIDENT Trump tweeted today that I am not worthy to serve in the military.

I served as a US Navy SEAL for 20 years, including in the elite SEAL team 6, before I retired. I served in war zones all over the place and was deployed for 13 tours of duty.

My job was to build bridges between nations and people and to gain allies and promote co-operation. I spoke to tribal chieftains and heads of state and even the guy down the street that drove a taxi.

I did a lot of intelligence work and black bag operations. It’s not like the movies at all; My work wasn’t always exciting, but it was satisfying in that I saved the lives of Americans and many other people every single day.

After I retired I was able to relax and just live my life. I am transgender and transitioned when I retired from the Navy in 2011.

Any branch of the government has staff and they work on policy and instructions to do their job. No branch of government has more policy or more instructions than the military. I think that is true of any military branch around the world.

For our Commander in Chief to tweet a few sentences and surprise the entire military, including the General Officers who run the military, is ridiculous. The Pentagon did not have a statement to release nor guidance for the currently serving transgender members. Basically, policy like this cannot and will not change with a tweet. So his tweet was FALSE.

FUNDING MYTHS

The other fallacies are based upon funding. There have been numerous studies, and the fact is transgender costs for the entire military each year are around $8M; Yes, Million dollars. The US Military spent $50m on Viagra last year.

How much was spent on Vasectomies? How about birth control for our military members? A few hundred million? So the argument that Transgender treatment is too expensive is FALSE.

CULTURAL FACTORS

It has also been claimed that having transgender people in the military is disruptive. The same argument was made in the 1950s about desegregation. The same argument was made about “Don’t ask Don’t Tell” and the open service of Gay and Lesbian service members.

Transgender people have served in our military since the 1700s. There are 18 other nations who have transgender people serving in the military. There is no issue of relevance. The claims of disruption are FALSE.

Now serving trans men and women have admonished the decision, and one highly respected officer is refusing to budge.

“I would like to see them try and kick me out of my military,” Sergeant Logan Ireland told Air Force Times.

“You are not going to deny me my right to serve my country when I am fully qualified and able and willing to give my life.”

The prominent trans airman, who is also married to a trans woman who serves in the Army, and has become a respected voice for the US military’s thousand of transgender members.

Sgt. Logan said he thought the ban would hurt not only the transgender community, but the nation’s military too.

“For the President to deny an able-bodied, fully qualified person the inherent right to raise their right hand and serve their country, potentially giving their own life for our freedoms, is doing this country and injustice,” he said.

“I would personally love for my president to meet me so I can tell him about myself, and the 15,500 honourably-serving transgender military members that are fighting right now for their liberties and their country.”

_________________My job is to travel the world delivering Chaos and Candy.

We don't know the Questions... does that means we cannot seek the Answers?

At original issue was a bill to finance his wall on the Mexican border...ya know, the one he bragged that Mexico will pay for? Some religious, southern representatives surreptitiously attached an amendment that forbid using military health funds to treat transgender soldiers.

Rather than strike the bill and jeopardize his wall, Trump just impetuosly said: fuck-it, let's just ban 'em! This, despite his campaign pledge to protect gays and transgenders in the military...and the fact that treatment of transgenders constitutes some .0001% of medical/military spending.

Trump is absolutely fucking barmy!!! These people serve their country because it's a calling from their heart. He is beyond ignorant, beyond backwards and really, beyond being allowed out in public let alone president of a fucking country!!

_________________No one ever made a difference by being like everyone else.

He shows ignorant, impatience in this move. The kind of amateurish move that political outsider would make

A more seasoned player would quietly, and competently, know exactly how to counter this move by some junior legislators. But for Trump it's too much, and he irritably wipes his hands of all to do with it.

Trump was instated to be the outsider, and it was done consciously by his supporters. Drain the swamp, was their clarion call. Well, of course, a fresh look comes with inexperience, and with inexperience comes ignorance. There are costs associated with ignorance, and these people are paying the price.

If a big burly ex forces bloke suddenly starts telling people that he is really a woman called Linda... then it is a sure sign of mental health problems...

Taxpayer money should not be going towards mutilating the bodies of mentally ill people to fit their delusions... i mean, you wouldnt say that a manic depressive who self harms should be able to get help to cut themselves, would you...?

_________________“Truth is ever to be found in the simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.” — Isaac Newton

'The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it.' — George Orwell

Trans people are not mentally ill you prick. Obviously you don't know any trans people. They can serve their country as well as anyone. Trump is yet again showing his ignorance and machoism while appealing to the base gutter level Republican supporters.

Les wrote:Trans people are not mentally ill you prick. Obviously you don't know any trans people. They can serve their country as well as anyone. Trump is yet again showing his ignorance and machoism while appealing to the base gutter level Republican supporters.

Gd on ya mate.

The Joint Chiefs of the Pentagon (Admiral of the Navy, Commandant of the Marines, General of the Air Force and General of the Army) announced today they would not accept orders from the WH by tweet. If the President wants to order this, he must go through proper channels:

ABC News wrote:For now, "there will be no modifications" to current policy, Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an internal memo to all military service chiefs, commanders and enlisted leaders. That was despite Trump's announcement Wednesday on Twitter that he will not "accept or allow" transgender people to serve in the U.S. military.

Eilzel wrote:Trans people are not mentally ill you prick. Obviously you don't know any trans people. They can serve their country as well as anyone. Trump is yet again showing his ignorance and machoism while appealing to the base gutter level Republican supporters.

IF Tommy ever actually paid income taxes, I would take his empty whining more seriously...

But to pay income tax, first he needs to earn some income..

_________________It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.Our life is frittered away by details. Simplify, simplify.The mass of men lead lives of quite desperation.Henry David Thoreau

Critics of Fake President Trump’s Twitter announcement barring transgender Americans from the military were quick to shoot down his rationale of "tremendous" health care costs.

Viral expenditures that supposedly cost less money than transgender troops’ health care included Defense Department spending on Viagra, building a fraction of the border wall and Trump’s own trips to Mar-a-Lago.

Some of the more prevalent examples contained more truth than others.

What the medical estimates sayTrump’s move reverses President Barack Obama’s 2016 policy that ended the service ban on transgender Americans. As many as 250 service members have asked to formally change their preferred genders, or have already been approved, the Associated Press has reported.

The Pentagon commissioned a report in 2015 to look at the number of transgender troops (the Defense Department did not keep track) and how integrating them would affect military budgets. The RAND Corporation released the report in June 2016.

The think tank estimated that there were between 1,320 and 6,630 active duty transgender personnel, and between 830 and 4,160 in the reserves. The midrange estimates were for 2,450 active duty and 1,510 reserve duty service members.

Only a fraction of active duty transgender service members were likely to seek medical treatment, the study said. RAND gave a high-end estimate that of active-duty troops, 130 would want gender transition–related surgeries and 140 would want transition-related hormone therapy.

The cost for these procedures would range from $2.4 million to $8.4 million per year, an increase of 0.4 to 0.13 percent in health care spending. That is, according to the report, "an amount that will have little impact on and represents an exceedingly small proportion of (Active Component) health care expenditures ... and overall DoD health care expenditures."

Another study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in September 2015 determined that 12,800 service members would be eligible for transgender health care, and 188 would use those benefits for transition services, at a cost of $4.2 million to $5.6 million.

Viagra and ED drugs

Liberal website Think Progress was one of many websites that tweeted an especially provocative statistic, saying that the military already spends 10 times more on erectile dysfunction prescriptions.

If a big burly ex forces bloke suddenly starts telling people that he is really a woman called Linda... then it is a sure sign of mental health problems...

Taxpayer money should not be going towards mutilating the bodies of mentally ill people to fit their delusions... i mean, you wouldnt say that a manic depressive who self harms should be able to get help to cut themselves, would you...?

Tommy you really are so ignorant sometimes. How on earth would you know what it feels like to be born in the wrong body? How does that make someone "mentally ill"?

You know what the worst 'mental illness' is? Ignorance. Best go see your doctor.

_________________No one ever made a difference by being like everyone else.

Tommy Monk wrote:I think I'm a 100m sprint world champion... but I have the body of a pub darts team player... have I been born in the wrong body too...!?

If you can tell the difference between that stupid example and being transgender, then you're more of an idiot than I thought.

It is sort of valid and much like the transgender person Tommy could undergo years of physical and psychological treatment, and then get chemical and surgical alterations to change himself.Of course the fact that Tommy doesn't, shows that he doesn't truly identify as an athlete with the same sustained conviction that a transgender person identifies as the other gender.

IF Tommy put in the same effort over the course of his life to try and acquire the correct body then he could. Tommy merely lacks the sustained dedication to change. he could at least look like a 100m sprint world champion. surgery wont get him the medals though

_________________My job is to travel the world delivering Chaos and Candy.

We don't know the Questions... does that means we cannot seek the Answers?

If you can tell the difference between that stupid example and being transgender, then you're more of an idiot than I thought.

It is sort of valid and much like the transgender person Tommy could undergo years of physical and psychological treatment, and then get chemical and surgical alterations to change himself.Of course the fact that Tommy doesn't, shows that he doesn't truly identify as an athlete with the same sustained conviction that a transgender person identifies as the other gender.

IF Tommy put in the same effort over the course of his life to try and acquire the correct body then he could. Tommy merely lacks the sustained dedication to change. he could at least look like a 100m sprint world champion. surgery wont get him the medals though

Tommy maybe pig shit ignorant, but so is the above views.He has a right to disagree here.Hence why its better to reason why he is wrong as Eilzel did.

eddie wrote:Have any of you doubters actually read any accounts of a person who feels as though they're born into the wrong body? Talked to any of these people?

I dont know any transgender people personally...(as far as i know) but local readio has followed a man as he embarks on his journey to change sex. Its incredibly interesting, and very touching, he hasn't yet had major surgery, but the preperation, both mentally and physically he is going through is traumatic to say the least.

Eilzel wrote:It's not a problem, tommy. The only problem is people like you.

Ignorance is the worst "mental illness" and it's preventable. He's just fucking ignorant when it comes to this topic.

Yeah. This and scores of others to be honest. Shows him up for the nasty piece of work he is.

You know I think it's really telling when people can't actually empathise with someone else. I don't have any thoughts of being unhappy within my own body and have always known myself and "felt" female, yet that doesn't stop me imagining how horrible it would be to feel the opposite. I've read so many stories and also personally spoken to a mother who's daughter is going through this (from as early as four years old!), and the heartache is honestly very real and confusing for everyone. This girl is now twelve and still wants to be a boy - she knows she's a boy.

People who make uninformed and ignorant judgements in this topic irritate me immensely.

_________________No one ever made a difference by being like everyone else.

Tommy Monk wrote:But I really 'know' that i'm really a black 100m sprint world champion... and the body i really should have, is one that has all the right bits that I 'know' I should really have...

Okay you can keep repeating this banality Tommy, we see the silly point you think you're cleverly making but you don't really feel like that, do you?

So let me make it simple for you: take one of your biggest beliefs, one that you believe in with utmost certainty, with gut-wrenching, soul-shaking certainty...and see if anyone can tell you that you're wrong.

_________________No one ever made a difference by being like everyone else.

'...Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is a mental disorder characterized by an obsessive preoccupation that some aspect of one's own appearance is severely flawed and warrants exceptional measures to hide or fix it.[1] In BDD's delusional variant, the flaw is imagined.[2] If the flaw is actual, its importance is severely exaggerated.[2] Either way, one's thoughts about it are pervasive and intrusive, occupying up to several hours a day...'

Wikipedia

_________________“Truth is ever to be found in the simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.” — Isaac Newton

'The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it.' — George Orwell

'...Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is a mental disorder characterized by an obsessive preoccupation that some aspect of one's own appearance is severely flawed and warrants exceptional measures to hide or fix it.[1] In BDD's delusional variant, the flaw is imagined.[2] If the flaw is actual, its importance is severely exaggerated.[2] Either way, one's thoughts about it are pervasive and intrusive, occupying up to several hours a day...'

Wikipedia

I understand what you mean but I don't think the two are connected.People who have BDD are obsessed with their appearance or part of it, a perfectly normal looking person sees themselves as incredibly ugly, or they may see a deformity that isn't there.

A transgender person isn't looking at their body because they see imperfections, they believe that they are living in the wrong body entirely because the basic organs that we are born with which denotes male/female....is the exact opposite of who they are.

Can you imagine if someone told you wires were crossed in the womb and you should have been born female?That must be how a transgender person feels.

'...Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is a mental disorder characterized by an obsessive preoccupation that some aspect of one's own appearance is severely flawed and warrants exceptional measures to hide or fix it.[1] In BDD's delusional variant, the flaw is imagined.[2] If the flaw is actual, its importance is severely exaggerated.[2] Either way, one's thoughts about it are pervasive and intrusive, occupying up to several hours a day...'

Wikipedia

I understand what you mean but I don't think the two are connected.People who have BDD are obsessed with their appearance or part of it, a perfectly normal looking person sees themselves as incredibly ugly, or they may see a deformity that isn't there.

A transgender person isn't looking at their body because they see imperfections, they believe that they are living in the wrong body entirely because the basic organs that we are born with which denotes male/female....is the exact opposite of who they are.

Can you imagine if someone told you wires were crossed in the womb and you should have been born female?That must be how a transgender person feels.

I think it is t basically the same thing...

And good one Nicko!

_________________“Truth is ever to be found in the simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.” — Isaac Newton

'The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it.' — George Orwell